event — English Dictionary

Noun

1. An occurrence; something that happens.

   Synonyms

   circumstance

   Examples

   In the event of strong wind…

   the events of his early years

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   Experience in Australia indicates that after a devastating weather event, up to one-fifth of people suffer the debilitating effects of extreme stress, emotional injury, and despair.

2. A prearranged social activity (function, etc.)

   Examples

   I went to an event in San Francisco last week.

   Where will the event be held?

3. One of several contests that combine to make up a competition.

4. An end result; an outcome (now chiefly in phrases).

   Examples

   hard beginnings have many times prosperous events […].

   Of my ill boding Dream / Behold the dire Event.

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   dark doubts between the promise and event

   In the event, he turned out to have what I needed anyway.

5. A remarkable person.

   Usage

   • Dated
   • Figurative
   • Uncommon

   Synonyms

   sensation

   Examples

   Miss Burton, you are an event! Sleepy, old Lymston's going to love you! Bye-bye. Bye.

6. A point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate.

7. A possible action that the user can perform that is monitored by an application or the operating system (event listener). When an event occurs an event handler is called which performs a specific task.

8. A set of some of the possible outcomes; a subset of the sample space.

   Examples

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   If X is a random variable representing the toss of a six-sided die, then its sample space could be denoted as {1,2,3,4,5,6}. Examples of events could be: X=1, X=2, X>5,X̸=4, and X isin 1,3,5.

9. An affair in hand; business; enterprise.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

   Leave we him to his events.

10. An episode of severe health conditions.

Verb

1. To occur, take place.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

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   1590, Robert Greene, Greene’s Never Too Late, in The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene, Volume 8, Huff Library, 1881, p. 33, […] I will first rehearse you an English Historie acted and evented in my Countrey of England […]

Verb

1. To be emitted or breathed out; to evaporate.

   Usage

   • Intransitive
   • Obsolete

   Examples

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   c. 1597, Ben Jonson, The Case is Altered, Act V, Scene 8, in C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson (editors), Ben Jonson, Volume 3, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927, p. 178, ô that thou sawst my heart, or didst behold The place from whence that scalding sigh evented.

   This is the reason why this water hath no such force when it is carried, as it hath at the spring it self: because the vertue of it consisteth in a spiritual and occulte qualitie, which eventeth and vanisheth by the carriage.

2. To expose to the air, ventilate.

   Usage

   • Obsolete
   • Transitive

   Examples

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   1559, attributed to William Baldwin, “How the Lorde Clyfford for his straunge and abhominable cruelty came to as straunge and sodayne a death” in The Mirror for Magistrates, Part III, edited by Joseph Haslewood, London: Lackington, Allen & Co., 1815, Volume 2, p. 198, For as I would my gorget have undon To event the heat that had mee nigh undone, An headles arrow strake mee through the throte, Where through my soule forsooke his fylthy cote.

   1598, George Chapman, The Third Sestiad, Hero and Leander (completion of the poem begun by Christopher Marlowe), […] as Phœbus throws His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos’d, Still glancing by them till he find oppos’d A loose and rorid vapour that is fit T’ event his searching beams, and useth it To form a tender twenty-colour’d eye, Cast in a circle round about the sky […]

Noun

1. something that happens at a given place and time

   Broader terms

   abstractionabstract entity

2. a special set of circumstances

   Synonyms

   case

   Broader terms

   circumstance

   Examples

   in that event, the first possibility is excluded

   it may rain in which case the picnic will be canceled

3. a phenomenon located at a single point in space-time; the fundamental observational entity in relativity theory

   Broader terms

   physical phenomenon

4. a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon

   Synonyms

   consequenceeffectoutcomeresultissueupshot

   Broader terms

   phenomenon

   Examples

   the magnetic effect was greater when the rod was lengthwise

   his decision had depressing consequences for business

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   he acted very wise after the event